Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

August 31

Encoding in Command Prompt

Hi. I use Windows 7. I want to use the Command Prompt (cmd.exe) to move a file between two directories. The problem is that the file name is in non-Latin characters (UTF-8), so, when I type its name in the prompt it is converted to question marks. How can I make the Command Prompt display UTF-8 characters? (P.S. I know that I can rename the file using Windows but this doesn't solve my problem.) --41.129.101.27 (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This probably won't solve it, but is worth a try: In XP you can click on the icon on the far left of the title bar, then select Properties, which brings up a pop-up menu. From there you can pick the Fonts tab. Now XP doesn't seem to have any fonts which support unicode, but perhaps Win 7 does. StuRat (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't work. The only fonts there are Consolas, Lucida Console and Raster Fonts. Maybe I can use an external program that supports UTF-8? --41.129.101.27 (talk) 02:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

According to this page you can make a font available by adding it to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont. However, you should be able to move the file even if you can't see its name in the current font, unless you're using a third-party command-line tool that isn't Unicode aware. UTF-8 has nothing to do with this, by the way: Windows stores filenames as UTF-16 and the console window and cmd.exe both use UTF-16 internally. -- BenRG (talk) 04:07, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Try this: In the Command Prompt properties, try changing the font to either Consolas or Lucida Console. (I don't think Raster Fonts will work.) Then at the command prompt, enter chcp 65001 to set the code page to Unicode UTF-8. --Bavi H (talk) 03:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know chcp will have no effect on cmd.exe, since it uses wide characters internally. -- BenRG (talk) 04:07, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I noticed when pasting characters into the Command Prompt, they were correctly displayed (if they were available in the font) and were interpreted correctly by commands, no matter what the code page was set to. I wasn't sure if typing characters on the keyboard also worked and didn't change the keyboard layout to test.

Setting the code page does seem to affect how cmd.exe interprets bytes in files when it displays them on the screen, for example, when you use more file.txt. Here are some additional tests someone conducted. I haven't yet found official documentation that details the effects chcp has in cmd.exe, there might be other effects or consequences we haven't noticed. --Bavi H (talk) 02:22, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

An alternative solution to this problem would be to use a copy program which can read the filename from a text file. FastCopy can do this, the command would be fastcopy.exe /srcfile_w="files.txt" /to=newdirectory AvrillirvA (talk) 03:40, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Try typing part of the name and hitting the Tab key. That normally completes the command, and may insert the characters you need automatically.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

If all you want to do is move the file, try using wildcards to represent the non-typable characters. Eg, move abc*.def. Obviously you need a combination that covers the file you want to move and not any files that you don't want to move. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Java Question

In Java, what does the 24 refer to in the following: return String.format( "%24s: %s\n%24s: %s", ..., ... ,..., ... ); ? And similarly: return String.format( "%02d:%02d:%02d", ..., ..., ... ); ? Thanks. 92.6.157.179 (talk) 11:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The java manual page about this is here. It works like printf in C - the %24s expects a string of 24 characters (shorter strings will be padded with spaces); the %02d will output an integer with a minimum of 2 digits and a leading zero if there is only one digit (often used when outputting dates like 31/08/2012). Astronaut (talk) 13:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Astronaut! Much appreciated! happy editing! 92.6.157.179 (talk) 14:04, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Unix Command Syntax

The Unix man command uses a specific notation to describe the correct syntax of a command. Alternate options are separated by vertical '|' symbols, and optional arguments are surrounded by [brackets].

Is there a name for this format, and/or an article about it?

and how would I specify "You must use at least one of the options -a,-b,-c and -d; you can also use option -e"?

Thanks, Rojomoke (talk) 13:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't quite know (I'd say it's some convention loosely based on EBNF or regexp syntax and doesn't have a name), but maybe you'll find further pointers (he he) in the GNU and POSIX guidelines concerning command-line interfaces 92.224.244.40 (talk) 16:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Since the point is to be helpful to users, I would explain anything as complex as that in the text of the man page rather than asking the user to decipher some obscure symbology. Note also that even more important than having a good man page is to give a good explanation if the user types your command with a --help option. Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Your second question might be answered:

mycommand -a|-b|-c|-d [-e]

--Sean 20:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not a formally-defined "format", so I doubt there's a specific name for (or Wikipedia article about) it. (We do have a Man page article, but it doesn't discuss these details.)

The second link provided by a previous poster gives specific advice about the format of the SYNOPSIS section, but I've found very few others. (Evidently, very few people have asked the question you're asking, and even fewer have answered it.) —Steve Summit (talk) 12:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Automatic Update Failing

I leave my computer on overnight (for various reasons), and recently I have been waking up to find that it has restarted itself. When I login to Windows I get a message saying Windows Update has failed to install. This has been going on for a few weeks. I manually installed the update and the message said it installed successfully, but somehow this problem persists. It keeps checking for updates every night and failing to install the same ones, again and again. What should I do? Win7 Home Premium. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

It's hard to say what is happening without more information on what ones are failing and what error codes are generated. Microsoft does have a "Microsoft Fix it" tool that can clear up some common Windows Update issues, and detailed instructions for resetting the Windows Update components. One of those may fix your problem: [[1]] 209.131.76.183 (talk) 19:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Removing "Live Security Platform" malware

How can one get rid of the malware "Live Security Platform" once it has installed itself and disabled measures such as using the normal means of removing a program? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.220.239.210 (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I assume you mean "Live Security Platinum". Try the instructions here. -- BenRG (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

can a microsite be under a different person's control?

could I produce a page and have it be on my servers, while it is at mypage.theirpage.com, right in DNS (so if someone types only mypage.theirpage.com then it gets right to my page without ever hitting theirs)? I'm asking because I don't fully trust them to report visitors correctly otherwise. If I can't do it right in dns, what's the closest I can come where we don't have to trust each other? Thanks. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

They can certainly make yoursite.theirdomain.com resolve to an IP address that's entirely out of their control (hosted in a different location with an unaffiliated ISP), but you have to trust them to do that much. If they're merely incompetent, they're less likely to screw this up than visitor reporting. If they're malicious, you can't safely use their domain. -- BenRG (talk) 22:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, BenRG, but can't I test where yoursite.theirdomain.com resolves myself? While it can start resolving somewhere other than my IP that I give them, if I have a script that checks from time to time, I can know immediately, can't I? I ask because the same is not true for visitor reporting. So is it at least "tamper-evident" - or can they resolve it "correctly" as far as I can tell (that microsite goes to my IP) while stealing some of the traffic? Isn't this done at the DNS level which I can verify? --80.99.254.208 (talk) 06:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Is nslookup yoursite.theirdomain.com what you're looking for? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 08:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

September 1

'Transcluding' forum posts, possibly through RSS?

Would it be possible to transclude (using the Wikipedia definition) posts on phpBB forums, say, or even Yahoo! Answers on blogs like Livejournal, or anywhere at all with some code? (I was thinking about RSS since that's sort of how it works, but not sure if it could be transcluded in this manner.) 62.255.129.19 (talk) 00:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Spam emails from myself

I get at least 20 spam emails every day from my own full name, first and last and I do not have a common name. It all stems from one Canadian pharmacy order years ago (the drugs when they arrived were shipped from India so I doubt the website was really Canadian). I get at least 100 spams a day, mostly for viagra and other drugs. Anyway, I've set my filters really well, so I only have about five spam messages that get through to my inbox. But I am a bit worried that if they're sending my name to me (which doesn't seem the best method for getting me to open up the email since I know it's not from me) they must be sending these to lots of people. If my name was like John Smith, I wouldn't worry, but anyone can Google my name and they will only find me. Is there anything I can do?--108.54.25.10 (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Nothing at all; the spammers and scammers have resold your name to one another (on massive lists) and now you, and random other people, get mails faked to look like you sent them. There's always drastic measures. 90.205.90.201 (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Spammers are not known for the sophistication of their marketing tactics, or their spelling or grammar. (Fortunately, this does make them rather obvious to most people.) Yes it's a pain and there's not a lot anyone can do about it, apparently. What I do is filter all that sort of spam into a separate folder/label and forward everything else to a new email address, and then only use the new address. (I hope you didn't ingest those dubious drugs.)--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It has been suggested that scammers use deliberately bad English because they're looking for stupid people. If you're the type of person who'd say "Come on, no one at the FBI would use that phrasing, and don't they think I've heard of Nigeria before?"— then the message is not intended for you. —Tamfang (talk) 04:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Those other people will get mails with their name as sender, not yours, otherwise you (and a lot of other people) would have received at least a few angry mails in return. It may just be a way to minimize traffic due to bounced mail (spammers don't want more bad press than they're already getting). Often there's a whole list of e-mail addresses in the to: or cc: field, if that's the case then your name may appear in other people's spam as well but I doubt people pay much attention to those. Ssscienccce (talk) 15:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There is also a spamming technique in which the sender's email address is spoofed as the recipient's email address. I am not sure why this is done, but I suspect it is done to get through the filters. If any mail you 'sent' yourself contains words filtered out by the spam filter, it will most likely be delivered, because the server thinks you sent it yourself. On a side note, I have a btinternet address, which I used to use for work, but now I hardly ever use it, because I get 40-50 spam emails (from 'work on the internet' jobs, and all from btinternet addresses, including my own) every day, and BT only label it as spam, and send it to your inbox anyway. I wouldn't worry about it. I have a very unique name, too, but I don't get complaining emails, because it is such a well-known and widespread problem with this particular email service, that no-one cares. I would suspect that to be the case with yours, too. Just google 'spam [+ your email provider]', or contact them directly. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:29, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Disk usage differences between ext3 and ext4?

When I installed my new 2 terabyte hard disk, I copied everything from my two personal partitions (one for my main files, one for my photographs) across to the new disk. But after I had done that, disk usage reports (both du and System Monitor) reported slightly less usage on the new partitions than on the old ones. It was in the order of about .1% to 1% difference. I had made sure I copied all the hidden files and directories too by not using cp -rp /oldhome/jip/* . but instead cp -rp /oldhome/jip /home, as * fails to expand to any hidden files or directories (I think this is by design). But the cp command finished OK, and so far it seems that all the files are there. Is this because my old partitions were ext3 but my new ones are ext4, and ext4 somehow makes more efficient use of disk space? JIP | Talk 18:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

If your shell is bash you can make it match dotted files by issuing shopt -s dotglob (though simply specifying the directory to copy, as you have, is, of course, cleaner.) The difference in space usage may be due to many things - block size, fragmentation, treatment of sparse files etc (dumpe2fs will display tunable file system parameters.) You can make du display just the file sizes (--apparent-size.) If those numbers match the difference is surely due to filesystem internals. Finally, you can do something like diff <(find /mnt/oldhome|sort) <(find /home|sort)(I now see it's more complicated than this, but you get the idea) if you're unsure whether all files are there 92.226.93.192 (talk) 12:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Full version of MS Office or Starter for Netbook?

I recently purchased an ASUS Eee PC Seashell series with a 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor, Win 7 Starter and 1GB of RAM. I am looking to install Microsoft Office 2010 on it to take notes for class. Given the hardware limitations of a netbook, would you recommend that I install the full version or the Starter version? In other words, is there a difference between system resource usage between the two versions that will lead to a difference in speed? Also, would an earlier version of MS Office run faster?

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems that the Starter Edition is basically the full edition with various features disabled (but apparently not removed from the programs code)[2] and adverts added. If that is the case then it would presumably use similar resources as the full version. Older versions will certainly run faster; I use Word 97 and with a dozen documents open it is only consuming 6.8MB of RAM AvrillirvA (talk) 01:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

You may want to consider using web or 'cloud'-based software such as Google Docs which would presumably not require the system resources required for Microsoft Office. Chevymontecarlo 09:34, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

If you are just trying to take notes, Office is a bit overkill (and bloated). That being said, I regularly use Office 2003 in a Windows XP virtual environment that is very constrained on RAM and CPU speed, and it works fine. The more recent versions of Office in my experience are a bit more bloated and slow. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help guys, I decided to go ahead and install the full version of MS Office 2010 on the netbook. So far, things are working very smoothly and I'm pleasantly surprised at how fast it's running. My reason for choosing MS Office 2010 rather than earlier version is for compatibility reasons when I am syncing the netbook with my other computers. Thanks! Acceptable (talk) 17:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Those netbooks are surprisingly powerful. I can even run Gimp on mine (in Linux), which is really a resource hog. Looie496 (talk) 17:40, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

September 2

Inverting the Multimedia and F keys on Asus netbook

My Asus Eee PC 1015PX has a set of multimedia keys (Volume up/down, mute, dim screen, etc...) on the top row on the same buttons as the F keys (F1, F2, F3, etc...). By default, when I press one of the keys, it triggers the F keys, in order to trigger the multimedia functions, I have to hold down the Fn keys on the bottom of the keyboard. Is there anyway to invert this such that when I press the keys without the Fn key it will trigger the multimedia functions, while pressing the keys while holding the Fn key will trigger the F keys?

I believe the programs responsible for this may be called "HotKeyMon.exe" and "HotkeyService.exe." However, I can only find these under the process list of task manager, and not in any program folder. Furthermore, task manager lists the user as SYSTEM, rather than my user name.

Thanks Acceptable (talk) 17:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

A family member's laptop has an option to do that in the BIOS. Try looking there. --Bavi H (talk) 21:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Also try Windows Key + X. 92.236.250.154 (talk) 20:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

weird computer problem featuring //@

Resolved

Hi all, I have a website that works perfectly well offline with explorer and firefox, but when online, it won't work with explorer. I've tracked the error messages, and explorer is definitely concerned about comments in my code starting with //@. I use //@ in javascript to mark major breaks in my code, so it would be unfortunate to have to change all of them, spread across about 5 or 10 files. Does anyone know what might be going on? I'm using lots of jquery include files from google code. Thanks in advance, IBE (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

In IE, //@ is used to indicate Javascript comments with conditional compilation; see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6s6fab9k%28v=vs.94%29.aspx. So most likely you're screwed. Looie496 (talk) 18:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link - googling wasn't helping me. People can add to this if they have any more detail, but I've put resolved so people know it's basically sorted. IBE (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It's also discussed in Conditional comment 176.250.67.119 (talk) 01:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

You Tube player problems

I normally use Internet Explorer to use YouTube. In the last 24 hours when I click to play a video, the entire screen goes white except for the video itself, which I cannot do anything with other than watch in full, no pausing or downloading. If I do click on the video while it is playing the entire screen will go black, although the sound will continue. At this point, if I right click on the black screen and select pop-out I will get a small viewer showing the video only which works properly, allows me to pause and download. But I have none of the background page allowing me to see related videos or comment, or the like. I have followed the suggestions at youtube's help page,disabled hardware accelerator, and used compatibility view in my browser, to no avail.

I tried using Firefox when this started, but Firefox will not even play the video, it shows me a simulated static screen with the words "An Error Occurred. Try Again Later." Are these problems possibly related?

Should I try reinstalling Flash, or an earlier version?

Can restoring default settings on IE help? I am reluctant to try anything drastic since I have no idea what is going on. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I had that problem some time ago with Firefox -- not sure about any issue with IE. In my case the problem was actually in RealPlayer. Here is the fix that Mozilla suggests. However, the fix that I applied, which actually worked, was this: (1) Start RealPlayer; (2) Open the Preferences, and select Download & Recording; (3) Uncheck the box that says "Enable Web Download & Recording for these installed browsers:"; (4) Press OK. Looie496 (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I definitely don't want not to be able to download with realplayer. I will check if doing so helps, however. μηδείς (talk) 18:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I both disabled and upgraded RealPlayer, neither had any effect. I did upgrade Flash almost a month ago, perhaps I should downgrade? μηδείς (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, both problems seem to have cleared themselves up, apparently due to the realplayer upgrade, although it seems to have needed something else to have taken effect in the last 10 minutes for it to kick in. Bizarre. Thanks for the help! μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

NOT

Resolved

AGH!!! It's back! I think the problem may be with YouTube. I don't have problems watching or downloading videos from other sites. μηδείς (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Whatevert the underlying issue was, I ultimately solved it by resetting to factory defaults wit the option to keep my data, and all is now working fine, although I have to manage add ons and change a few other settings back how I like'm. μηδείς (talk) 04:14, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

GIMP 2.8 takes a lot of memory?

Previously, when I was using Fedora 14, I could open a bit more than 100 image files on GIMP at the same time (the size of each of them was in the order of one megapixel). Now when I have Fedora 17 and GIMP 2.8, I can't open even half that many. Trying to open 40 such files grinds the computer to a complete halt. Opening 30 files is as far as I can get, and even then I experience minor slowdowns. Is GIMP 2.8 really this greedy on resources? JIP | Talk 18:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you using KDE? When I ran Fedora 14 and KDE 3.5, I could connect my PC to the TV to watch streaming media. Basically this means I am running two monitors. When I upgraded to Fedora 16 and KDE 4 (on the same hardware), I could no longer do this. When I attempt to run two monitors, the video stream is unwatchable. The only solution was for me to disable the actual monitor and just use the TV. I solved the problem permanently by ditching KDE and moving to IceWM. --TrogWoolley (talk) 14:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I use GNOME, not KDE. I had to install Cinnamon to get some semblance of the usable Fedora 14 desktop back and not that awful crap the GNOME project is officially heading towards. JIP | Talk 17:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

What are you doing that requires you to have 100 images open at once? GIMP was never really designed to be used that way. Looie496 (talk) 17:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I regularly download images from DeviantArt. I've found out that since I'm usually only interested in part of the image, I can save time spent viewing the images if I combine the interesting parts of several images into one. I use the GIMP for this purpose. Unfortunately, since I'm too lazy to do this combining work as often as I browse DeviantArt, I have acquired a backlog of more than one thousand images. Therefore it's more efficient to load a hundred or so in the GIMP at once. JIP | Talk 19:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I've done comparable things quite a bit -- my method is to use GIMP in conjunction with gThumb. You can open a directory of images in gThumb and then drag&drop thumbnails one at a time to GIMP. GIMP was designed with the philosophy of being purely an image editor -- it does not try to be an image manager, and isn't very useful for that purpose. There are lots of image managers other than gThumb, and I expect that many of them would work, but gThumb does the job just fine for me. Looie496 (talk) 21:55, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

MIS (Managing Information System)

How many contents are present in MIS? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.52.106.189 (talk) 22:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. Does the article Management information system help? Otherwise, please clarify what you are asking. RudolfRed (talk) 22:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Python: from list of strings, to list of integers

If you have a list of strings, like ['6', '9', '7', '14', '11', '9', '11'] and want a list of integers, how do you do it? Somehow sum(list) won't convert the elements on the fly. I know that I could convert and sum each element with

for i in list:
   a += int(i)

But, isn't an easier, standard way of doing this? Comploose (talk) 23:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

sum(int(i) for i in list)

or, to get a list of integers out of list:

list2 = [int(i) for i in list]. 

OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Or, if you are old-fashioned and have a sense of beauty: list2 = map(int, list). Note that all these work because int is not just a type name, but also a function that constructs integers from strings. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Tangentially, while map in python2 returns a list, in python3 it returns an iterable. The two are interchangable in many practical cases, but if someone really needs a list, you'd say list2 = list(map(int, ['6', '9', '7', '14', '11', '9', '11'])) 90.211.231.197 (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I realise that yours is a simple example, but in general it's a bad idea to call a variable list, as list is also a built-in function which takes an interable and produces an actual list. Python is forgiving in that it lets you do this, but if you forget and later (in a larger program) you try to call the builtin you'll get TypeError: 'list' object is not callable, which can be hard to understand. 90.211.231.197 (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

September 3

Stupid Twitter question

I've tried to use Twitter a few times, and found that when I try posting to it, the tweets are listed in my history, but don't ever seem to turn up on a search by the hashtag I put in them. Is that some kind of deliberate feature, or does it indicate the thing is "hexed" somehow and never really gets posted? Wnt (talk) 03:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No idea but in these sort of things it always makes sense to log out and see what a person not logged in will see. N.B. This doesn't of course when you want to see things from another logged in users POV, which is usually needed with Facebook but usually not Twitter AFAIK. You can of course create another account if this is needed although it might violate the site's TOS and may theoretically put your main account at risk. Nil Einne (talk) 05:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think this is expected behaviour. The nature of hashtags is that they allow you to discover what other people are saying about a subject. I've found a few anecdotal references around the web to suggest this is the case, but nothing official from Twitter.

Further to what Nil Einne said above, if you're worried about your tweets disappearing, I'd recommend enlisting a friend to help you test (of course, you could use a second account instead). Send a tweet like this: @yourfriend Hi, I'm just going to do a test. Can you search #test67352hgdui5487 and see if you see this tweet? (obviously replace @yourfriend with your friend's twitter handle). Given what I said above, I'd expect them to be able to see the tweet in a search, whilst it will be invisible to you. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:59, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Apparently the solution is not to use Twitter search (which requires login apparently) but use Topsy.com^[3] - and apparently no, the Tweets don't show up anywhere but in the account profile. No idea what is up with that site, or how it's supposed to be an improvement on IRC or Usenet. Wnt (talk) 15:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

...or RSS hosted on your own server. Twitter is a member of a generation of "Web 2.0" brand services. The objective of such services is to start with existing free software and either reimplement the feature-set, or simply run it on a server. The objective of such companies is "to go viral," meaning "to pay for the server, bandwidth, and infrastructure costs for millions of people." In exchange for fronting the costs, these companies may show advertisements, or may just try to self-aggrandize their own brand. All the while, they violate the spirit, if not the terms, of the free software that they use to drive their web services. It is for this reason that the GNU Affero license was conceived: to ensure that free software is still free, even if it is executed on a server. Nimur (talk) 15:35, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not the chat functionality or the ability to spew your thoughts out that makes Twitter interesting/fun/whatever. It's the fact that you can hook your account up fairly directly to famous people, people with similar interests, and so forth. The interactivity level is very high compared to Facebook or IRC or so forth — you are one degree of separation away from the entire planet, you subscribe to them, they can subscribe to you, nobody pretends to be "friends," the amount of interaction is pretty specifically limited to chatting (not tagging photos or whatever) and so forth. You don't have to like it, but at least take the time to understand what draws people to it, rather than just dismissing it as being made up of component technologies that already existed. It's very different from IRC, very different from just hosting your own RSS feeds, obviously different than Usenet. It's a clever service and fills and interesting niche. I was skeptical before I started using it more heavily professionally; it's become a huge way of how I disseminate my own research at this point and is the main way I make interesting professional connections out of my own narrow field these days. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

This has a five blind men and an elephant feel to it... Do you have Tweet Privacy turned on? Are you searching just for hashed terms or other terms? Do you list "all" or just "top" Tweets? Are you using extremely popular hashtags (and thus perhaps just getting drowned out by the volume) or unusual ones? You should be able to search for your own tweets if they are showing up. I don't use hashtags much, but I'm pretty sure you should be able to see your own hashtags. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

[Your comment alludes to blind men and an elephant, which might be unfamiliar to some readers.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)]

Facebook

Trying my luck once again: What is the max size of a file you can attach to a personal message on facebook? 81.218.12.100 (talk) 08:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, but since it seems you are having no luck, I can offer this suggestion: try a big file and see what happens, and keep trying various sizes until it doesn't work. Mingmingla (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Outlook 2010 display

I've just had Outlook 2010 installed on my work PC. I have emails from asian colleagues whose name is now displayed in an asian font. In my Contacts list I have them listed with name = asian font name; display name = anglicised name; email address = abc@xyz.com . In the email list they are still "From" the asian name. How do I make it either the display name or the email address please? -- SGBailey (talk) 11:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe this will help, but it is hard to tell since I probably don't have the same account/exchange setup as you. On my Outlook 2010, under Tools -> Options -> Mail format tab, I have an "International options" button which opens a dialog with settings for fonts etc. Also under the "Other" tab, the "Advanced options" has a setting about unicode. Astronaut (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't even have a Tools menu! I have "File", "Home", "Send/Receive", "Folder" and "View". None have an (obvious) "Options" option. Ah well. -- SGBailey (talk) 08:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I think Astronaut is actually talking about Outlook 2007 or 2003. In 2010, you go to File → Options → Advanced → International Options to get there. To customize how the contact list is displayed, you can go to Contacts → View Settings and then choose what contact fields are displayed in that view. If you want to customize the "display as" name, you can simply edit the contact by double-clicking on it and then change that field.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 09:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Best Dog Ever is correct. I could have sworn we used Office 2010 at work, yet there it is in the about box "Outlook 2007". Astronaut (talk) 16:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Best Dog Ever's paths work, however the contacts option looks as though it will chnage the contacts page display, which is fine (I have all of Asian name, anglicised name and email address showing). The File Options path takes me to a page where I can select the font that is displayed, but not what is displayed in the email list. What I want is to NOT display what in contacts is "Full name" but what in contacts is "File as". I have tried editing the contact to swap them round and that didn't help. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

2d car movment

I'm making a little game where you drive a car. It's a 2d top down game. I'm having trouble getting the car to drive correctly. For example I would like the car to accelerate towards a top speed, instead of simply hitting a predefined top speed and stopping its acceleration. Also at slow speeds the car should turn in a tighter circle then at faster speeds. I just can’t figure out the math. Here's what I have so far:

if (NativeMethods.IsKeyDown(NativeMethods.VK_LEFT)){
     Polygon.Rotate(-1 * Speed * elaspedTime.Milliseconds * 0.01F);
}

if (NativeMethods.IsKeyDown(NativeMethods.VK_RIGHT)){
    Polygon.Rotate(1 * Speed * elaspedTime.Milliseconds * 0.01F);
}

if (NativeMethods.IsKeyDown(NativeMethods.VK_UP))
{
    Speed += 0.05F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;

    if (Speed > MaxSpeed){
        Speed = MaxSpeed;
    }

    if (Speed < 0){
        Speed = 0;
    }
} else if (NativeMethods.IsKeyDown(NativeMethods.VK_DOWN)) {
    Speed -= 0.05F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;

    if (Speed < -MaxSpeed){
        Speed = -MaxSpeed;
    }

    if (Speed > 0){
        Speed = 0;
     }
}else{
    if(Speed > 0 )
        Speed -= 0.01F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;
     else
        Speed += 0.01F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;
}

Polygon.Move(Velocity);

86.45.177.178 (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you clarify something: do you want acceleration to be a function of current velocity? If so, you just add that in: Speed += 0.05F/Speed, or some similar correction factor. You either have to play around with it, or find a formula on the internet that models the dependence of acceleration on current velocity. If it's not working at all, you have changed your variable from Speed to Velocity in the code above, so I can't quite follow it. IBE (talk) 15:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

PS: you'll probably want to divide by something like (1 + abs(Speed)), because otherwise you divide by zero. IBE (talk) 20:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

A car's top speed happens when the force being applied to the pavement balances the drag from wind resistance. If you want to model something similar to that, just reduce the speed by a value proportional to the square of the current speed each time the position is updated. The acceleration will have to fight against that, and it will grow stronger as the acceleration stays constant. Eventually they will balance and your speed will level out. It will also add a slowing down effect when not accelerating or braking. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe

Speed += ms/5000 * (MaxSpeed - Speed);

for forward acceleration (which is basically the same as user 209.131.76.183's suggestion, without the squared part). You can adjust the constants, but whatever you use, make sure that

0 < ms <= 5000 (or <=your constant). (ms is meant to be the time interval in milliseconds, elaspedTime.Milliseconds in your code.)

And I can see a minor 'bug' in your code. Pressing UP while going in reverse will kill the speed instantly, as will pressing DOWN while moving forward.

Your code for drifting is almost fine, but keep in mind that

if(Speed > 0 ) Speed -= 0.01F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;

can cause a VERY slow car to reverse slightly, and

else Speed += 0.01F * elaspedTime.Milliseconds;

will cause a stationary car to move forward slightly.

Two more ifs will catch those cases though. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 09:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Mac OS X Lion: Inbuilt PHP

I enabled Apache (via System Preferences, Sharing and enabling Web Sharing) and entering 127.0.0.1 showed the "It works!" HTML file.

I went to Terminal, entered:

cd /etc/apache2/
sudo nano httpd.conf

After entering my password, I managed to uncomment the following line

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Successfully saved the Apache configuration file and closed Terminal.

Entered the following into TextEdit and saved as phpinfo.php in \Users\user\Sites and \Library\WebServer\Documents:

<? phpinfo(); ?>

Opened both phpinfo.php files in Safari and in both cases, only saw the code.

Restarted Apache by disabling and then enabling Web Sharing, checked both files again, still no luck.

Tried enabling the PHP configuration file by going back to Terminal and entering:

cd /etc
sudo cp php.ini.default php.ini

Still no luck.

Tried changing the code to:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Still no luck.

This was tried on a brand new Mac OS X Lion machine.

What is going wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by YoungAspie (talk • contribs) 17:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Two things: 1. Are you making sure you are accessing the page via the localhost and not just as a file? That is, what's the URL you are accessing? It should be something like http://127.0.0.1/~username/phpinfo.php (which is where Username/Sites is mapped by default, I think), not file://etc.etc./whatever/phpinfo.php. 2. Have you tried rebooting since changing the files? Always worth a shot. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

September 4

Router

Routers without wireless functions do not seem easy to find these days. I know many wireless routers allow the wireless part to be "disabled" but I am very suspicious as to whether it still leaks radiation when supposedly disabled. Short of buying an EMF meter and scanning it, is there any way to know for sure if the signals have truly been disabled? I realize all electrical items emit low level electromagnetic radiation, but I would like to minimize excessive exposure where possible. Would wrapping it in tin-foil block the signals, acting like a Faraday cage? 92.233.64.26 (talk) 16:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Almost all devices using electricity leak some radiation, even the wiring in your house and we are all bombarded with radiation all the time. The contribution from a router with the wireless part turn off will be very small, no worse than any other electronic device on your home. Most devices these days carry a FCC Declaration of Conformity notice somewhere on their casing or perhaps in with the manuals and so on. The UK equivalent is the CE marking. These declarations are to certify that the electromagnetic interference from the device is under limits approved by the relevant body. Unless you routinely cover all your gadgets with tin-foil, I wouldn't bother picking out the router specifically. Astronaut (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

As I said, realize all electrical items emit low level electromagnetic radiation. However, the router is being singled out because it emits additional and far stronger radiation when operating in wireless mode, and disabling wireless mode may not disable the radiation. For all I know it might just scramble the signal to prevent other wireless devices detecting and connecting to it, giving the illusion that it has been disabled, but still emitting the same strong radiation. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that the radiation from your router is even harmful? The Wireless electronic devices and health article says that the UK's HPA says there is “...no reason why schools and others should not use WiFi equipment.” and "Dr Michael Clark, of the HPA, says published research on mobile phones and masts does not add up to an indictment of WiFi." Domestic routers have a signal range of up to 100 metres in my experience (by comparison, the radiation emitted by a mobile phone needs to travel a few km to the nearest cell mast). You might also find Wi-Fi#Safety interesting to read. It is also probably worth pointing out that, even if you shield your router, you are unlikely to be able to shield yourself from your neighbours' equipment - my PC can detect 54 other routers, presumably all the neighbours in my apartment complex. However, I doubt you are going to be able to tell whether your wireless is really and truly off without using some sophisticated detection equipment - you could always ask the manufacturer. On the other hand, if you are "very suspicious" that off is really off, would you actually believe them? Astronaut (talk) 19:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for refuting my irrational fears of electromagnetic radiation. They have been sufficiently placated and I now firmly believe that wireless radiation is entirely safe for all the family. However my two main questions remain unanswered;

1. Other than an EMF meter, are there any ways to detect whether a device is emitting strong electromagnetic radiation?
2. Will tin-foil act like a Faraday cage and block radiation from wireless equipment? 92.233.64.26 (talk) 19:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Astronaut answered your first question in the last sentence of his answer. The second is answered at Tin foil hat. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:00, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

"some sophisticated detection equipment" is a little vague though, and I was already aware of that fact; I know about EMF meters, as I specifically mentioned them in my post - what I was asking is if there are things other than EMF meters which can detect it? Even diy solutions like modifying an old radio or something 92.233.64.26 (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

If you are interested in a practical, professional solution where you get a router which does not emit more EM than is necessary, you should set out to buy a router that simply doesn't have such a feature. It isn't an uncommon for small routers in some business environments to not have 802.11. For example, businesses in some security conscious sectors like healthcare and finance may flatly forbit any wireless-capable equipment to be on the premises, and places where EM interference is an issue (such as medical imaging or explosives) forbid all things radio. Makers like Draytek (I'm not recommending them specifically, but they're pretty well regarded) feature wireless and no-wireless versions of the same router, for this reason. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, and the information about environments where wireless equipment is universally considered unacceptable. That is very useful information and will hopefully help avoid the "it's safe/it isn't safe/you're a crackpot" debate in the future. Indeed I should have known better than to give background to my question here, as it is obvious in hindsight that was the direction it would go. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You can easily find non-WiFi routers at e.g. Amazon. Or at Cisco ;-). But you need to specify if you want an ADSL or Cable modem with it, or a pure ethernet router (in which case you probably really want a switch), or something else. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I have an 8 port ethernet switch already but it doesn't have its own mac address as far as I know, so the problem would be that if I plugged the cable modem into the switch it would see several computers might lock onto the wrong ones mac address. And even if it locked onto the right one, the traffic for the other computers would have to go through the computer the modem locked onto and back out the same port into the switch again before reaching the other computers which would reduce the available bandwidth 92.233.64.26 (talk) 23:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

How to access a WPS wirelessly?

If you have the PIN of your WPS (it's enabled, and it's not push-buttom), how do you connect to the router? Do you need anything else? Is there an IP like http://192.168.1.1/ to change the settings? Comploose (talk) 19:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

it's absolutely impossible to connect through wireless with WPS only. You always need a cable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.78.62.32 (talk) 19:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

starting a new internet forum

So, I want to attempt to host an online forum, maybe with some other parts attached too when I get around to it, however I'm not sure how. I was reccomended webs.com, but my site might have a little 18+ material at times, and it seems that is against their terms of use, so I'd need somewhere else. I do have a website, but I have no idea what I'm doing there at all, I'm not even sure how to get into the part where I say what I want on the site. So, what do I do?

79.66.110.76 (talk) 19:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You could create a new sub-reddit on Reddit (details). Or you could create a mailing list on Yahoo Groups. I think you could do this on Facebook too, but I don't understand their content and privacy policies well enough to know whether that would match your requirements. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

There are free forum hosts available. I am a member of a forum which is hosted at http://www.zetaboards.com/ although with free hosts, you will most likely be restricted as to what you can post. For example http://www.zetaboards.com/ have a no pornography policy. Another option is to use your own webspace and host the forum yourself using PhpBB. This way you can pretty well do what you want. --TrogWoolley (talk) 12:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Share internet connection with ad hoc network

Two computers: A with linux, B with windows 7. B has an internet connection, A does not. I would like to connect A to the internet via an ad-hoc network on B. This works fine if I set up an open (i.e. without password) ad-hoc network on B with "share internet connection" enabled and then connect to it from A. However if I try the same with a WEP or WAP protected ad-hoc network it does not work, i.e. I cannot connect to the internet. Is there anything extra I need to do in order to make it work? On linux I am running the following commands: "iwconfig wlan0 essid adhoc", "iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-Hoc", "ifconfig wlan0 192.168.137.5 up", "iwconfig wlan0 key s:secret", "route add default gw 192.168.137.1". I read that connecting to a WAP ad-hoc network with linux is tricky, but I'd expect that at least the WEP would work. bamse (talk) 20:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Learning C# after Java / C++

I already routinely use C++ and Java, and I have a good OO foundation. However, an upcoming project will require me to use C#. What is the best way to go about learning C# programming, without stating from a "novice programming" level? I'm mainly concerned with "How is this different from what I already know?" I'd prefer on online (especially free) solution to buying a dead-tree book, if at all possible. Also, this project will be done using Mono (which I will also need to learn), not Visual Studio. Thanks! - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 22:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is the best resource I know for C# documentation; especially if you're already familiar with fundamental concepts of programming. There are C# "Walkthroughs" that will familiarize you with the APIs and methodologies for common tasks; there are "Getting Started" guidebooks; and there are API references for the standard libraries in .NET. I'm not specifically familiar with Mono; but the language is the same, and the system libraries are similar (they are intended, at least, to be compatible with Microsoft's .NET system); I'd start with the official Mono Start webpage. They have links from there to the API references and several getting-started documents. Nimur (talk) 02:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Strange delimiters in HTTP?

When I go to cloudflare.com and go to view source. I can see that the start is <html> and the end is </html> but, when sending a raw HTTP request I can see there are some numbers at the beginning between the headers and the content, and:

1


0

at the end of the content.. Am I missing something? 190.158.212.204 (talk) 23:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

That's the chunked transfer encoding. -- BenRG (talk) 23:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

September 5

Bluetooth

If two identical cell phones were fixed in place mechanically so that, to the submicron level, the relevant components were the same distance from a bluetooth headset, and the headset were then turned on, how would one cell phone acquire the headset over the other? Peter Michner (talk) 12:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Every bluetooth-capable device has a unique identification number (BD_ADDR). Using this they can unambigiously identify one another by this means alone. BD_ADDR is used during pairing and authentication so you know which headset you're connecting to, and so no-one can spoof that headset and impersonate it. If both of the headsets in your example have already been previously paired with the phone (meaning it's stored their details) and they're both turned on simultaneously, it's up to the phone to decide which it prefers. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I wrote it wrong, but I was saying if you have two phones and one bluetooth thing to which neither phone has ever been linked, how would one of the two phones get connected with the one bluetooth earpiece. I know with my Jabra bluetooth earpiece, the first time I ever turned it on in close proximity to my iPhone, my iPhone immediately showed the little bluetooth icon in the upper right corner, meaning my iPhone linked with the Jabra earpiece. What if two cellular phones were precisely the same distance from one bluetooth device that has never connected to either and the bluetooth device was turned on? Peter Michner (talk) 13:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Bluetooth has a sophisticated protocol, because it is a fairly modern form of digital communication. This is a special case of the more general problem of resolving collisions in a shared transmission medium. Each type of wired or wireless technology has a mechanism for handling this case; some similar methods are carrier sense multiple access with software-controlled re-tries that are timed randomly to avoid repeating the collision. Other schemes use address-based coding, so that the message is only decipherable to its intended recipient. In some communicaton systems, like aviation radio, voice procedure is used to handle collisions (at the "Application Level" of the OSI stack): you simply say who you want to talk to, and if the message gets garbled, you try again. For a very specific answer to your question, we'd need to dive into the details of the Bluetooth protocol specification. Often times, the solution is a mechanism designed to guarantee a strict ordering among devices, even if the individual devices are unaware of others on the shared radio channel. Nimur (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hard Disk Docking Station vs 'Portable' HDD

I am considering the puchase of an external hard disk drive (HDD) for storage/backup purposes for a laptop with a 500 GB internal HDD. (I am recording TV from a digital USB TV 'stick' and it takes a lot of space, about 5+ GB an hour!)
One possibility is a 'portable', USB powered HDD of about 1.0-1.5 TB. Another possibility is a USB interface HDD docking station, the type that takes 'bare' (uncased) HDDs, as I have a spare 3.5" 1 TB HDD available.
Any knowledge, experience, reviews etc. of the merits of such a docking device vs a more portable 'cased' type HDD? Regards, 220 of ^Borg 17:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The cased HDDs are usually nothing more than a docking device plus a normal consumer HDD, although the cased HDD may actually be cheaper than a docking device plus HDD, because they're produced in much greater volume. A merit of a cased model might be simplicity - it saves you the trouble of putting one together yourself, and (especially the 2.5" models) may be able to work off the power provided by a USB port, saving you the trouble of carrying both the drive and a power supply. Unilynx (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for reader-controlled highlighting in Wikipedia articles

Dear Wikipedia,

As I don't know where to put my this question, however I arrived here.

Since I read wikipedia most of the times, and wikipedia pages are open for many hours a day. So when I change my tabs, I loose my sight from important lines in previous tab. So I want you guys to add some facility, so that I can highlight my important lines with some colors. ( Here I want to tell you that in a wikipedia page, you can highlight ONLY one continuous line with blue ink (as it happens in all the pages, if it is wikipedia or any other ), what if I want to highlight many lines on the SAME page.)

Please add this facility to Wikipedia, so that everyone can take advantage of it.

All for One and One for All.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.149.62.52 (talk) 17:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The place to make suggestions like this is WP:VPT. Making them here won't lead anywhere even if people like them. Looie496 (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC) (PS, I have removed your email address, as it makes you a target for possible spam.)

What's the point of LaTex?

It's nerdy, complicated, ugly (apparently like the people who love it). And on the top of that, when you submit an article to a magazine, they want a rtf or Word file. Comploose (talk) 18:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It's important to realize that Template:LaTeX was created in the early 1980s, and Template:TeX even earlier. If somebody was starting from scratch nowadays, they wouldn't create a system that works that way. Even so, it still has some nice features for some people: (1) it is excellent for complex mathematical formatting; (2) it still produces very nice looking output in comparison to Word. Looie496 (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It was created at a time when printers were capable of displaying fancy typography but computer displays could not display anything fancy. Think monochrome monitor and IBM 3270. Since then, various ways of WYSIWYG have become possible, but they are proprietary and incompatible. So LaTex remains as a platform-independent way to produce fancy typography. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

JPG not working in a WIki

I've been uploading some files to another Wiki. Most of them are OK, but some completely fail to show up, producing a blank screen. They all look OK viewed on my PC at home, and there's no obvious difference between those that work and thoses that don't. You can see one of the images at http://www.foxearth.net/Halfway_to_Heaven.JPG. Any suggestions as to what the problem could be and how to overcome it?--rossb (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

IRC problems

I am wondering why I have been kicked off of #wikipedia-en-help, when I was clearly attempting to assist another user. I even asked them to link me to the article they had a problem with. Then, out of nowhere, Fluffernutter (or on of the other ops) came and told me off. S/he then kicked me off of the channel. Could you please look into this. My name is dannyboy1209. Peter Symonds failed to reply. 92.0.124.34 (talk) 18:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)